The Godfather's Revenge

Winegardner's novel is like an Italian feast--the food is plentiful and tasty, but it takes a long time to get to the main course. Still, Winegardner's writing will keep you listening. His twists and turns are expert, and he never does the obvious. Scott Brick's performance never gets tiresome, though it does take a while to get to the inevitable clash between Godfather Michael Corleone and Nick Geraci, the scheming Cleveland criminal who wants it all. Brick makes the hours slide on by. Listeners love his flourishes, like the way he ends his sentences with a little upturn. Yeah, Brick's got style. He makes a great book even better. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

September 25, 2006
In Winegardner's mediocre second sequel to Mario Puzo's classic (after 2004's bestselling The Godfather Returns
), La Cosa Nostra gets involved in a plot in the early 1960s to assassinate a JFK-like U.S. president, Jimmy Shea. Instead of building on the fascinating characters Puzo created, such as Michael Corleone, the reluctant successor to his father's Mafia empire, Winegardner dwells on the machinations of Michael's main rival, Nick Geraci. When Geraci mysteriously disappears and eludes capture by the authorities, the reader learns in a jarring nod to Osama bin Laden that "the most powerful nation on earth had deployed skilled intelligence and law enforcement personnel to conduct a gigantic manhunt for a powerful and resourceful leader of a secret criminal society—a tall, imposing, bearded man with a chronic, withering disease—and somehow failed to find the cave where he was hiding." Godfather
fans might prefer getting reacquainted with the original novel and the two better of the three films it inspired.